spaf@gatech.CSNET (Gene Spafford) (10/25/85)
Below, I offer a proposal about how to calm the net.internat controversy.
First, let me note that I am not the only person holding the opinions
about the net.internat situation that I do. It just so happens that I
am one of the more visible and active presences on the net trying to
help instill some order in the chaos, and so I guess that makes me a
very visible and easy target. It used to be there were 5 or 10 people
whose names you could associate with trying to keep the Usenet going.
It's now down to 3 or 4. I wonder why?
Mail to me has been roughly 50-50 on my position of rmrgouping
net.internat. The postings are about 4-1 against, but that figures --
it is so easy for someone to post without thinking. And of course,
that's where the flames are. Why do so many people find it so
easy to criticize others without offering any *positive* solutions or
compromises?
To reiterate -- everybody thinks that their favorite newsgroup is
special, that it deserves special attention, that we ought to give it a
break and do something different to support it. *Every damn group*!!
For me, in good conscience, to add net.internat to the list of groups
and support it at my sites (I help administer news on 9 machines and 2
campuses) without having gone through the same procedure as every other
"net" group, would mean that I could never again feel right about
complaining about the creation of any other "net" group. Neither could
many other responsible sys admins. And the net as a whole just *cannot*
continue to support the haphazard creation of new groups, at least
until we establish criteria for deleting old groups (try THAT sometime
and see what kind of hate mail you get -- I know).
Okay, my suggestion: I'm opposed to net.internat because of no
demonstrated previous volume, the manner in which it was created, and
the fact that the name is really a very poor choice to convey what is
going on. The lack of volume creates problems with identifying and
establishing a readership that won't cross-post everything to other
groups, and keep the group going after the first rush of initial
postings. The manner in which the group came about leads to problems
of precedent and other new groups. And the name problem (which could
have been solved if only people had bothered to discuss it in
net.news.group before creating it) is also a problem.
(As an aside, we had a "net.std" for a long time for the discussion
of standards. It never got used. When I deleted it about 3 months
ago, only 2 people ever complained. Where were all of you then?)
What I propose is that we create "mod.std.international" or some
similar subgroup of mod.std. Let's discuss the name here in this group
to get it right. It will require that we find someone to moderate the
group -- preferably more than one, including at least one in Europe.
If so many people are so sure that the group is such a great idea, then
I'm sure they will be more than overjoyed to participate in the support
of the network and their newsgroup. Moderation is easy and there is a
great deal of software to make the chore painless. Let's see how it
addresses the problems I brought up with net.internat:
-- The name. Well, here we're going to pick a new name. Hopefully
there will be some discussion and consensus this time instead of
someone just going ahead and creating it.
-- The precedent. Moderated groups have always been created because
we had sufficient interest and a worthy topic, not because of
volume. I think that describes this situation. Creating a
mod.std.international in no way gives any justification for creation
of any other "net" group without following procedure.
-- The lack of volume. "mod" groups can be deleted easily if
there is no volume; the same cannot be said of "net" groups.
With a good coordinator it becomes a little easier to keep readers
and inspire new discussions. (I've gotten mail, and Rick Adams
has made a posting, which note that some people had *already*
unsubscribed to net.internat because most of the postings were
just repeated whining about the problems with ASCII).
There are some additional benefits:
-- Mod groups don't have the potential for abuse and overwhelming
volume that "net" groups do. This is great in a newsgroup that will
be active *worldwide*. If a moderator can be found on each side of
the Atlantic, minimum, then the mail traffic for postings will be
kept at a reasonable level.
-- Mod groups are probably going to be directly suitable for
the Stargate uplink. No such bets on any "net" group.
-- Mod groups might present a better opportunity to get an ARPA side
of the group started and involved. If nothing else, the
administration of such a task would be made easier.
-- Mod groups present a better opportunity for "official" contacts
(e.g., mod.std.unix and John Quarterman) should any formal standards
organization wish to take part in the discussions.
Before some semi-pro flamers start in, let me point out that moderated
groups *work* as long as there is no "net" counterpart. Even then,
some of them (like mod.sources) work quite well. With the switchover
of "fa" groups to "mod" groups, the "mod" groups are a presence here
to stay.
That's it. Now, are there any volunteers for moderators and
suggestions for a name? Or would you all rather bitch and flame about
it some more instead?
--
Gene "sometime in 1986" Spafford
The Clouds Project, School of ICS, Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332
CSNet: Spaf @ GATech ARPA: Spaf%GATech.CSNet @ CSNet-Relay.ARPA
uucp: ...!{akgua,decvax,hplabs,ihnp4,linus,seismo,ulysses}!gatech!spafjsq@im4u.UUCP (John Quarterman) (10/27/85)
Spaf mentioned my name: > -- Mod groups present a better opportunity for "official" contacts > (e.g., mod.std.unix and John Quarterman) should any formal standards > organization wish to take part in the discussions. so I'm going to make a few comments. Major points listed at the outset: Net.internat should exist in some form; the traffic is demonstrated, if the original EUUG mandate wasn't enough. It should be moderated; the verbosity and repetition in the net group is sufficient demonstration. There are precedents for outside organizations mandating newsgroups. Deleting net.internat was Real Bad Idea regardless of its ugly name and it not having been created according to the rules. The name net.internat is really ugly and incredibly unfortunate. What the name of the newsgroup should be. The first point needs no further elaboration. Spaf has given most of the arguments for moderation of the newsgroup, but there are still a few other things worth mentioning. Some have complained that they will have to pay twice: once to mail a submission to the moderator, and again to receive it. (If I understand correctly, most UUCP links in Europe run over X.25 links supplied by the government postal and telephone departments, so that every message is paid for individually.) Well, if you post one message in ten of those which appear in the newsgroup, you will have to pay ten per cent extra. If it's not worth that to you, maybe you shouldn't post. If you were planning on posting a higher percentage than that, maybe you should think twice about whether you really have that much to say, or whether you could say it more concisely. Spaf called for volunteers to moderate mod.std.international, thinking that no one has volunteered before. It's not so. I volunteered at the outset of the original discussion about net.internat (yes, Virginia, there was discussion, though much of it took place by mail) to funnel the net.internat traffic through mod.std.unix. (Though I have enough trouble keeping up with the small traffic already in mod.std.unix.) I also pointed out that there was no real reason that there couldn't be another moderator in Europe to avoid the problem of having to mail submissions across an ocean. Since spaf tells me that he now has several other volunteers in N.A. for moderator, I withdraw myself. Ut-sally isn't a backbone site, and we don't have the telephone bills of a backbone site. However, the amount of CPU cycles and disk space USENET eats up on that machine (and im4u) are not inconsiderable. I sympathize completely with the backbone administrators who are trying to keep their load from growing to the point they can't afford to support it (we couldn't pay for their present loads: that's why we're not a backbone site). All you who are flaming spaf might consider that he's not Young Hitler out to take over the net; he's just trying to preserve what there is and maybe improve on it. You may not like his methods (I may not like them either) and he may make mistakes, but he's well intentioned, and he does listen to reason (though not to flaming very well). To you in Europe who proposed the newsgroup: have a heart! Moderate it, and pick a better name. Like mod.unix.international or mod.std.international. Several people have written that mandates from outside organizations have nothing to do with newsgroup creation on USENET. Well, mod.std.unix is an example of a newsgroup which does in fact exist because it was mandated by a group outside of USENET: the IEEE/P1003 Portable Operating System Environment Committee, with collaboration by the USENIX board. There was little or no prior demonstrated traffic. There was *no* public discussion in net.news.group. So far as I know the only discussion directly related to USENET was in the moderators mailing list and private mail. You may say "but that's a moderated newsgroup, and besides we don't do it that way even for them anymore." What about net.usenix? Doesn't fit into a rational naming scheme, has very little traffic, what there has been of late has been mostly about skiing: thus low signal to noise ratio. I hear no one calling for deletion of that newsgroup, or asking if it was created properly. Could it be because USENIX is its de facto sponsor? Even if there were no precedents, it is downright rude and insulting to EUUG to ignore their call for a newsgroup. It is true that net.internat is an incredibly ugly name, but is "mod.std" any prettier? It is true that the proposers of the newsgroup did not follow the letter of the rules for creating newsgroups. However, this ain't net.bizarre we're discussing: it's a world-wide technical newsgroup of the sort that I, at least, think USENET should support. (I don't say that we shouldn't have non-technical newsgroups. I've helped create a couple myself (ones which mostly stick to their intended subjects). But posting or reading news is *not* a right, especially if you don't pay for it, and you cannot expect other people to pay for endless drivel like net.bizarre. The bulk of transmissions does matter. The signal to noise ratio does matter. (This is, of course, the main reason it should be moderated, not net.internat.)) Deleting the existing newsgroup before establishing a replacement was a Real Bad Move, especially when the people in EUUG behind it had demonstrated their amenability to reason (by their agreement in public in net.internat that they hadn't completely followed the rules). Were all the backbone site administrators who made the decision in North America? Were even any Canadians consulted? Not to mention Europeans, Japanese, Koreans, and Australians? If this was a purely U.S. decision, you backbone site administrators deserve all the invective you've gotten from Europe. Sure, you bear the brunt of the costs of the network (at least on this continent), and you *can* do it. Without even consulting anyone overseas. But have you never been overseas? Do you know nothing of American history? Do you not understand that it's exactly that sort of thinking and practice that makes the rest of the world view the United States with such ambivalence, if not outright contempt? The newsgroup name net.internat is not appropriate, because it should be a mod group, and it should not be a top level group. The traffic in net.internat to date indicates that many people are not interested soley in discussing internationalization of UNIX. So spaf's idea of mod.std.international would be appropriate. Someone who was at the EUUG BOF where the newsgroup was mandated points out that it was intended to be specifically about internationalization of UNIX. That considered, mod.unix.international would be better. Even that ridiculous abbreviation mod.unix.intnl would be better than net.internat. The insistence of others that it be called whatever.internat makes me wonder if they've never seen the word "internet", and, if so, why don't they realize how easy it is to confuse their made-up word with the other, real, one? If the idea was to limit the length of the name to fourteen characters or less, I say let everyone update their software. Four years since B news 2.9 is long enough. So. I applaud spaf's proposal for mod.std.international. He has compromised somewhat. EUUG have compromised by proposing net.unix.intnl. Let's split the difference and call it mod.unix.international. Credentials. Some people have been going on about how if you haven't contributed to the upkeep of USENET, you shouldn't verbalize in public about it. I wrote uuhosts, which is used to display information from mod.map. It's not pathalias or uucp, but some people find it useful. I also run a system which distributes news to a couple dozen others, and I moderate a newsgroup. -- John Quarterman, UUCP: {ihnp4,seismo,harvard,gatech}!ut-sally!jsq ARPA Internet and CSNET: jsq@sally.UTEXAS.EDU, formerly jsq@ut-sally.ARPA
mom@sfmag.UUCP (M.Modig) (10/28/85)
At this point, I've about had it with wading thru all of the articles about net.internat-- all of the arguing over points big and small isn't getting anything anywhere. I think a group about internationalisation would be very useful-- if all this hoohah has done anything, I think it's certainly demonstrated that there is plenty of INITIAL interest. I like the proposal that Mr. Spafford has put forward-- including the name. I think a moderated newsgroup would be more appropriate to a technical discussion to help cut down on redundancy and garbage, something that is particularly important for a group being distributed worldwide; the arguments about moderators destroying a group don't seem to hold a whole lot of water since one can always post gripes about moderator behavior elsewhere. (net.news.group would probably be one place to consider in such a case) It would certainly be awfully nice (and rather surprising) if future arguments about such a group were confined to criticisms of this proposal, and examination of any reasonable alternatives that might be suggested by people. Mark Modig ihnp4!sfmag!mom
tanner@ki4pv.UUCP (Tanner Andrews) (10/29/85)
For name: try mod.std.intl For moderator: if the volume will stay reasonable, and the site upstream from here will carry the group, I would be willing to moderate for the Southland. For delays in posting this: most newsgroups were held up a couple of links upstream while one of the newsfeeds got over some constipation -- <std dsclm, copies upon request> Tanner Andrews, KI4PV uucp: ...!decvax!ucf-cs!ki4pv!tanner